Breaking News

Best Wednesday Ever brings big revenue to South Bend's West Side

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video

It’s all fun and games on South Bend’s West Side for the Wednesday edition of “Best Week Ever”, but businesses are hard at work cashing in.

The manager of Taqueria Chicago, Jazmin Martinez tells ABC57 she sees a 60 per cent growth during these festivals.

“It has grown a lot it’s amazing how much it’s grown every year. It’s pretty nice to see this going on, especially making the community better; it looks nicer and brings more people in.”

Martinez says her clientele has grown thanks to the input West Side Wednesday has had.

“We’ve never had events like this so it has never brought different towns here it’s always been the same neighborhood and now it’s a little bit of everything,” says Martinez.

According to the event coordinator Christin Kloski, the purpose of this festival is to honor and highlight businesses along this street.

“Today we want to try to expose those businesses to the local community and share that effort for the Best Week Ever,” says Kloski.

Others say it’s not just about that extra boost of income. “It’s good that everyone is coming together as one,” says Fred Patton, with the Perfect Touch Barber Shop. “The Blacks, Whites, and Latinos everyone is having fun and the kids will see it’s alright to come out and be friends.”

“They’re trying to make it better out here and it’s nice what they’re doing,” says Martinez.

“By the end of the night we just want people to have a good time on the West Side,” says Kloski.

Kloski adds Wednesday’s crowd could be bigger than ever. “Expecting a thousand, getting two thousand, who knows we’ll keep that growing, we’ve seen a lot of transformation.”